


Not Alone

by argentConflagration



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Small adorable baby children, small Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3170183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentConflagration/pseuds/argentConflagration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after the game, everything is nice and nothing hurts. And no one is alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wigmund](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wigmund/gifts).



Callie closed the cover of the tome in her lap and looked up with a smile.

"That was sooooo long," the small troll on her shoulders said, stretching his arms.

"Yeah, how long did it take you to write all that?" asked a human of about 6 years sitting at her feet.

"Well of course it wasn't just me," Calliope answered. "Your mother"--and here she delivered a gentle _boop_ to the human child's face with one claw--"assisted a great deal."

"But still, you must have spent gazillions of years working on that!" the small troll chimed in.

"Well, someone had to record such a fantastic epic," said Callie. "And besides, the process was quite enjoyable."

"You should go back and read all the parts about Terezi!" squealed a wiggler by her side, currently gnawing on the armrest.

"No, no!" protested the human. "Read the part again where Jade saves everyone with her space powers!"

"Nooooo!" wailed the troll boy. "Read the part where Kanaya takes out all the bad guys with her chainsaw!" He waved his arms through the air, making noises of "Vroom, vroom," and nearly losing his balance.

Calliope stood up and placed the book back on its dusty shelf. "Surely you don't want to go back to reading my boring old story now that we've just finished. How long have we taken to get through this? It's undoubtedly been several months now."

"Read more!" insisted the small troll girl, clinging to Callie's leg. "It's a super cool story!"

Smiling, Calliope brought the book back off the shelf. "Alright, but only because you three are so adorable. But you certainly can go back and play with your parents, or with the other children. Surely you must be bored of hanging around me for so long."

"But you're really nice!" said the troll boy, wrapping his arms around Callie's neck as she sat down in the armchair again. "And you read us the cool story. You should read the part again about when you all put on funny costumes to look like trolls."

"Yeah, read that part!" the human child quickly chimed in. "Because that way we won't have to have another big yelling match over whose parents are the coolest."

"... _It's Jade and Dave_ ," she added a moment afterward in an exaggerated loud whisper.

Calliope laughed and opened the book again.

As she read the asked-for passage, one of many familiar passages in this tome written years ago, revised, and told and retold to various audiences, the children were silent but for the occasional laugh and squeal of delight. Even the smallest of the three had paused her devouring of the chair's arm to mimic putting an additional pair of horns on her head and painting her face.

"How did you get the idea to dress up like that?" asked the human child.

Callie gestured shyly to her face. "It seemed a more ... presentable way of interacting with non-cherubs. I feared my true appearance would be rather frightening."

"That's silly," said the troll on her shoulders. "Your face is awesome and green."

"Yes, well, it rather resembles a skull, don't you think?"

"Skulls are cool, though!" said the human. "Just ask Uncle Jake."

"As awesome as skulls may be, I think they would be scary to someone unfamiliar with my species..."

"You're not scary," said the troll girl, climbing up into Calliope's lap. "You're a nice bed. And you're pretty like an emerald." Calliope set the book aside for a moment, so as not to crush the small troll, who quickly nuzzled into Calliope's shirt. "You should have just read your stories to the humans, then they wouldn't have been scared of you."

"Yeah, yeah!" echoed the boy. "Read to them about Kanaya protecting everyone, then they would never be scared ever!" He lowered himself down into Calliope's lap, picking up the smaller troll himself and holding her.

"I'm so happy for you," said Calliope, "to have a guardian who you admire like that, who looks after you and keeps you safe."

"Kanaya is the best," hummed the boy. "But you're my guardian, too, Callie."

"And what do I guard you from?" Callie teased.

"Not having enough cool stories with chainsaws," said the boy, resting his head in the crook of Callie's arm. "That's something everyone should be protected from."

The human girl laughed.

"Imagine if my mom only read me stories without chainsaws," the boy continued. "I would grow up and something would be missing. And then I would be addicted to chainsaws for the rest of my life."

The human girl laughed, grabbing the boy off Calliope's lap and tickling him furiously. "You already are addicted to chainsaws, numbnuts."

The small troll stood up shakily on Callie's lap. "Can I go up?"

"Of course you can," Callie answered, lifting the girl up onto her shoulders.

"Can I do the thing?"

"Well, a little bit," Callie said. The child grinned and began to knock softly on Calliope's hard head, singing a tune to herself, making up words as she went along.

"Oh, I went to the moon and I ated up the sun, and I went to the stars and I had lots of fun, and I crashed down to earth in the purple bubbly sea, and I swam myself back to my friend Calliope."

"With that kind of ambition, I'm sure I'll be writing my next book about you!"

"Only if I manage to swim back and tell you all about it. That's why that part's most important," the small troll said, leaning against Calliope's scalp.

"But what are we all going to do once you eat the sun? We won't have any light!"

"It's okay, I'll bring it here in my mouth, and then you can make it big again with your spacey thing, and then we can have it here and have light and also use it to power bicycles." She slid down into Calliope's lap again, the other two still mock-wrestling on the floor. "I like you."

Calliope hugged the little girl. "A long time ago, before you were even a grub, I was very alone. It's nice to be alone sometimes, but it’s not fun to be alone all the time, for years and years."

"It's okay, Callie. We'll help you not be alone any more."

**Author's Note:**

> The human girl is Jade and Dave's daughter, the troll boy is being raised by Kanaya and her friends, and the troll girl is being raised by Terezi and her friends. Kanaya managed to raise a new Mother Grub, so the troll children are biologically random mixtures of various of the canonical trolls.


End file.
